Is the NCAA transferring swimmer Lia Thomas' medals to Riley Gaines? No, that's not true: An NCAA spokesperson told Lead Stories that this claim is false. A site that originated the claim says its satirical articles are "not meant to be taken seriously."
The claim appeared in a post on Facebook on December 3, 2023 (archived here). Above a side-by-side image of Lia Thomas and Riley Gaines, the caption opened:
Big news out of the NCAA... See Link In Comments...
Below the images, the text in the post reads:
NCAA TO TRANSFER MEDALS FROM LIA THOMAS TO RILEY GAINES
This is what the article looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Dec 6 22:28:15 2023 UTC)
Lead Stories contacted the NCAA about the claim regarding the two swimmers. In a December 6, 2023, email, Greg Johnson, associate director of communications, responded that the claim is false.
The link in the comment section of the Facebook post led to a December 1, 2023, article on thefreedomfront.org site (archived here) titled, "Riley Gaines vs. Lia Thomas: The Impact of 'Gender-inclusivity' on Women's Sports." This article is listed under the satire category on thefreedomfront.org website.
The Freedom Front article stated that this story originated from an article on spacexmania.com (archived here) titled, "Breaking: NCAA To Transfer Medals from Lia Thomas to Riley Gaines." This article was under a satire tag on spacexmania.com. A disclaimer on this website, under the "About Satire" subhead, reads:
Please note that the article under the category 'SATIRE' are satirical in nature and are not meant to be taken seriously. These articles are meant to be humorous and are often entirely made up. We make no claim that the information presented in these articles is true or accurate.
Lead Stories found no evidence of the NCAA reporting it would transfer Thomas' medals to Gaines. Google News' index of thousands of credible news sites did not reveal any evidence of this claim when Lead Stories did a search (archived here) of the phrase, "NCAA is transferring Lia Thomas' medals to Riley Gaines."
Other Lead Stories articles on claims related to Lia Thomas and Riley Gaines are here.
Additional Lead Stories articles that mention SpaceXMania are here.
